Bob Romano

A few years after we moved into our home, Trish and I finished off the basement, creating two rooms, one for her art supplies and the other for my fishing paraphernalia. On one wall of my room, in between artwork by Winslow Homer and John Swan, hangs a photograph of my father. It’s set above my fly tying table, across from the shelves where my fly fishing...

The water is low, but the river may still hold a few surprises if I take Master Cotton’s advice and fish long and fine. After snapping my hippers to the loops of my jeans, I take a moment to wipe the perspiration from my brow. Wild rugosas reach out from either side of the trail. The humidity holds the fragrant scent of their delicate yellow-in-white...

For the third time in as many minutes the trout rose under the shadow cast by the low-hanging branches of a maple tree. The subtle disturbance could easily be mistaken for a minnow or pumpkinseed, maybe a nymph breaking the surface to emerge into an adult mayfly. No loud splash, not even the usual concentric circles, only the briefest of dimples to betray...

It’s hard not to smile as I tramp through a meadow sprinkled with dandelions and buttercups. Upon my approach, a pair of robins fly onto a nearby apple tree, pink blossoms sprinkling down from its branches. For the first time since last spring, I can feel the sun on the back of neck. A warm breeze carries with it the scent of honeysuckle as I draw closer...

I’ve always enjoyed history, knowing we are a part of something extending beyond the here and now, one of the reasons I’ve gravitated toward fly fishing, intrigued with an endeavor dating back through the centuries. This morning, I’ve pulled one of my favorite flies from a bit of rippled foam glued to the inside of a tin holding a half-dozen wet...

Having planted my peas in soil still moist from a late-season snowstorm, I walk our property, stopping to clean out a number of birdhouses, each nailed to a cedar post. When a field mouse pokes its head out of one such box, I take a step back, reluctant to evict the tiny rodent from its winter residence. Afterward, I follow Winslow, our thirteen-year-old...

I suppose it’s a matter of time. Time for Trish to pack away the winter decorations, time for her to clean the windows, and give our old house a good scrubbing. Time to bake the ham and a batch of cookies before Emily flies in from Texas to spend Easter with her parents. Time for me to stack the cordwood I’ve been splitting all winter. Time to evict the...

I admit it. For me, it’s been about the fish, in particular, brook trout, the native char of western Maine’s Rangeley Lakes Region. Although that’s not how it started. I remember summer evenings on the bank of the Saddle River, a polluted stream located in suburban New Jersey. I’d be seated beside my father, a hard-working man of few words, who...

It’s still dark as I dress, the sun reticent to rise on such a cold, gray morning. Trudging down the stairs and into the living room, I find the woodstove still warm. I’ve tucked a bright yellow, long-sleeve tee-shirt into my jeans. The jeans, a pair purchased from L.L. Bean the year before our college-age daughter was born, are lined with flannel...

As a young man, I read Hemingway and Steinbeck, Harrison, and McGuane. Along the way, the fly-fishing raconteur, Richard Brautigan, brought tears to my eyes while the rabid environmentalist, Edward Abbey, had me raising my fists in outrage. I took to heart the words found in Practice of the Wild, the thought-provoking book written by Gary Snyder: “The...